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12/26/2004 – Most people spend the Christmas holidays in the circle of their families. Not so chess players, who roam the globe in search of chess tournaments. We bring you the most exciting of these end-of-the-year events. In one Viktor Korchnoi will face a grandmaster who is 101 years younger than a previous opponent. Here are the details...

Official
site (in Spanish) with results and games, run by the chess magazine
Jaque.

Harmonie 2004

The Harmonie Chess tournament 2004 is being staged in Groningen, from December
21st - 30th, 2004. After four rounds John van der Wiel (NL, 2493) and Merab
Gagunashvili (GEO, 2567) are in the lead with 3½ each. Other stars:
Friso Nijboer (NL, 2567), Yuriy Kuzubov (UKR, 2530, 14 years old).

In the lead: GM John van der Wiel

Official
site (English) with live coverage, games, results and report.

Drammen
Chess Festival

The Drammen Chess Festival starts on December 27th, 2004 and lasts until
January 5th, 2005. Participants of the Smartfish Chess Masters section are:

Alexei Shirov

ESP

2726

Alexander Khalifman

RUS

2669

Peter Heine Nielsen

DEN

2663

Luke McShane

ENG

2629

Bartlomiej Macieja

POL

2613

Viktor Korchnoi

SUI

2601

Simen Agdestein

NOR

2589

Magnus Carlsen

NOR

2581

Antoaneta Stefanova

BUL

2523

Leif E. Johannessen

NOR

2519

The Smartfish Chess Masters sets a meeting between generations and sexes:
The world's youngest grandmaster Magnus Carlsen (just 14) will play against
Victor Korchnoi (73) who is old enough to be his grandfather. Alexander
Khalifman, FIDE world champion 1999-2000 will encounter the present women's
world champion Antoaneta Stefanova. And everyone will have to play Alexei
"Fire on the Board" Shirov.

Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi, during a visit in Hamburg

During his recent visit in Hamburg (for ChessBase DVD recordings) Viktor
Korchoi mentioned a game he had played in the fifties against Grigori Yakelovich
Levenfish (or Loewenfisch in English). "It was an exciting game,"
Viktor Lvovich said, "which my opponent in fact won, and was very proud
of. The game is interesting for me because next week I will be playing a
serious game against Magnus Carlsen, probably the most talented young chessplayer
of his generation. Why is it interesting? Because Magnus was born exactly
101 years later than Levenfish. So I realize that I have been playing against
opponents from six different generations!"

Magnus Carlsen, the 14-year-old grandmaster Korchnoi will have to face

Official
site (Italian) with the sections Storia, Tornei, News, Corsi,
Attivita and Contatti

The Hastings Chess Congress starts on December 28th, 2004 and ends January
9th, 2005. The tournament has a new format: the Hastings Premier and Challengers
are combined into one knockout tournament. The games will be played with
White having 70 minutes and Black 90 in which to make the first 40 moves.
Then each player will receive an extra 20 minutes for all the moves. There
will be an addition of one minute per move cumulatively from the first. Where
games are drawn, ties will be resolved first by blitz games.

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!